I wonder how the Madagascan Martin Dugard is doing?
There is a British Martin Dugard, a speedway legend from Eastbourne. There is also a Dugard Corporation, which engineers machine tools. Facebook shows a bunch of other Martin Dugards.
But it's been thirty-two years since I was in Madagascar, covering the Raid Gauloises adventure race along the desolate southwest coast. It was my first big journalistic adventure. I flew literally halfway around the world (LA-London-Mauritius- Reunion-Antananarivo) and had to take three weeks off from my corporate job. The trip was the making of me, with temperatures so hot the French journalists knocked off ten degrees because no one in the Paris bureau would believe that it was more than 120 in the shade along the Mozambique Channel.
We passed the time in the Mangoky River, sitting up to our necks in the muddy water as we waited for teams to come through a checkpoint. That night, shining a headlamp out onto the water, all we could see were crocodile eyes reflecting off the light. We ate fresh zebu for dinner one night, though I chose not to look as the animal was slaughtered, butchered, and thrown in the stew pot by locals. Had to spit out the hairs from its coat as I dined.
Photo credit: Nathan Bilow
When we finally got to the finish line along a pristine white sand shoreline, the water was too shark infested to swim, but i did my best Peter Pan leap for a photographer. I missed my young sons and the "off to Neverland" bound was a way of saying I was coming home soon. Nathan Bilow took the shot, which is now framed on my office wall.
When I returned from Madagascar and got fired for having the temerity to take three weeks away from the cubicle, that photo cast the deciding vote in my becoming a professional full-time writer. Calene took a long look at the shot and swore she'd never seen me look so happy. The rest is family history.
I tell the story better in Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, the saga of my adventure racing years. But one day during the Madagascar trip I stepped away from the competition to wander through some local wilderness. I was approached by three armed, uniformed policemen. They looked menacing, though when one is alone in a foreign wilderness and three gun-toting officials approach, everyone looks menacing.
One of them pulled out his notebook. "What is your name?" he asked.
I told him. "Please write it down," the policeman ordered.
He handed me a pencil and the notepad. I did as I was told, not sure if I was about to be arrested. I would have a similar experience ten years later in Africa and spend a few days as a prisoner in Sumbawanga, Tanzania.
The policeman looked thoughtfully at what I'd written. "My wife had a son today," he told me with a sudden smile. "We will give him this name."
I can't imagine the wife's reaction when he came home with that bright idea. Probably the same look when I told Callie I wanted to chase writing full time. But if that woman went along, the Madagascar Martin Dugard will turn thirty-two in November.
So I wonder how he's getting along. Just a thought. But I hope he does a little writing now and then.